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Monday, March 20, 2017

Summer 2017 - Air Serbia

The 2017 summer season begins on Sunday March 26, with Air Serbia set to make cuts to its network. The Serbian carrier will reverse a number of frequency upgrades made last summer season. The move will coincide with a change in the airline's business strategy later this year, more on which you will be able to read in the weeks to come. This summer, the carrier will discontinue its seasonal flights to Varna and Kiev, while operations to Istanbul were terminated on March 14 and have since been replaced by AtlasGlobal, with which Air Serbia has concluded a codeshare agreement. Furthermore, flights to Warsaw will not resume following their suspension at the start of the 2016/17 winter season last October. Tivat will sustain the biggest reduction in frequencies, with the Serbian airline to slash nine of its flights on the route during most of the summer season - from thirty to 21 weekly. It comes as a result of a new codeshare agreement between Air Serbia and Montenegro Airlines, with the latter also to maintain three daily flights between the two cities.

Moscow and Zagreb will see a four weekly reduction in flights, while two return services will be cut to Ljubljana. Sofia will be maintained once per day, as was the case during the 2015 summer season, while Amsterdam, Brussels, Bucharest, Copenhagen, Dubrovnik, Dusseldorf, Paris, Pula and Stockholm will sustain a reduction of one weekly flight. On the other hand, services to Ohrid will see an additional weekly service, while the airline will launch a new four weekly route to Venice from June 1. Seasonal flights to Malta, which usually commenced in June, will now resume from the start of the summer season, ahead of Wizz Air's planned launch of the same route.

Please note that the changes listed below are preliminary and based on current availability in the GDS (Global Distribution System). Air Serbia is prone to making additional changes mid-way through the season. The airline has expressed interest in introducing services to Tehran, Krasnodar and Pristina. Furthermore, the table below displays the peak weekly frequency on each route during the course of the summer season. Increases in frequencies to a number of destinations do not come into effect until mid-June. Seasonal flights to Split, Dubrovnik and Malta will run until the end of the summer season, while services to Pula and Ohrid will operate until mid-September. EX-YU Aviation News will also bring you summer season changes for Croatia Airlines and Montenegro Airlines during the course of the week. Meanwhile, you can review modifications Adria Airways will be making to its network this summer here.

They would come from savings of having dedicated 737 flight crews and from the excessive and expensive maintenance that 30 year old airplanes require.Also from flying more fuel efficient aircraft and standardizing the flying experience for its customers.

That is precisely how "little Perica" this the airline business work. If only you could get the newest airplanes and call it a day, money would fall from the sky all by itself, you wouldn't have to do much else at all.

That is precisely how "little Perica" this the airline business work. If only you could get the cheapest/oldest airplanes and call it a day, money would fall from the sky all by itself, you wouldn't have to do much else at all.

Not everyone in this world feeds his/her soul with bad news and is craving for more of these. That's why normal people generally don't feel like joining you in excited counting of each and every second until the arrival of bad news.

@Anonymous March 20, 2017 at 9:24 AM,Yes, they need to get rid of the A330. Even BH Air have dropped their plans for NY service and returned their A330 to the lessor. I think that only only ATH beside IST can sustain year-round services to the US in the region.

yes, there will be no more 2+2 configuration, and instead will be 3+3 with middle seat blocked for business class passengers.

Yes, I am sure, as I was for those cuts.

Situation is not good at all. There is shortage of money for long period now. But it is not catastrophic and with restructuring there is possible exit from bad situation.

Delay for new NEO will be because of simple reason: Air Serbia can not afford expensive new plane leasing in this moment. penalties for delay are less damage than the huge financial expenses that company can not afford which would increase debt out of real proportion for restructuration.

JFK is not possible to kill because of leasing contract and strong will of PM Vučić to have that money burning route.

@ Insider,wasn't the NEO's deal going via Etihad? Isn't Etihad supposed to get those planes and lease them to Air Serbia? Why ASL needs to pay penalties to Etihad?Also, what is going on with AUH route? Will they drop in favor of Etihad?

If you have leased contract (with Etihad or someone else) and can not take those planes you must pay penalties. Simple as that. With this Eihad can postpone delivery of A320 and pay penalties to Airbus, or can station new planes for "better days", or can use them elsewhere (what I don't think so as they have too many planes on order and can not afford that at this moment), or can lease those planes with huge discount to third party (can afford discount as Air Serbia will pay penalties).

But for sure you can not just say "sorry Etihad, we change our mind, those A320 are your problem".

While i support the cuts, getting rid of the business class is stupid. It is still 8 places vs. 12 that you can still sell as upgrade or overbook in economy. Air Serbia will take away one of the rare things that differentiate it from other airlines.

Luckily Dane's days are numbered, he will be out soon. That man singlehandedly chased away all the competent people from the airline. Last week six people quit. Luckily Hogan is out so there is no one to tolerate his incompetence.

with their long haul ops they are endangering the whole airline. Now they try to cut short haul in the hope to minimize the huge losses JFK is producing. In the end it will just leave the airline without any substance.

Many things are already less than JAT, not to mention that JAT at least kept their Adriatic Class, while AS will remove its Etihad-style business class and revert to the usual intra-European "empty middle seat" class.

We will see the complete change in product which will shift towards, rather than change to hybrid low cost, with cost cutting mainly aimed at no freebies on board and booking model change. People within are hugely skeptical, frightened to speak up and worried. I think that with current model they would be sustainable only without long haul ops, but ceasing that is out of question politically. So we will shall see. As about Kondic, he is there to stay...

46 flights pw is at least 2 planes not one. So, that means they will cut one more plane from fleet not just that Adria CRJ.

There would be no less charters this year than last. Exempt if JU will be forced to do so because of shortage of fleet. But that means even more cuts than from this time-table, so 46 less flights on JU + cuts on AvioLet.

it would be interesting to see capacity utilization of JU fleet and the effect on profit these changes have. a330 is already severely underutilized for known reasons of JFK route negative profitability.sure, there is a cut based on adria's crj, but as I see this will leave some atr's and a319 less utilized as well.if we don't see some new routes inked in the following weeks (krasnodar, finally zadar and something new) this will mean that they have for the time being ran out of ideas where to strike next and that they probably plateaud with the current approach. ok, they have big switch to sabre in the following couple of months, which is taking much of the company resources, but they need something new.if i was them, i would be looking for a way to profitability, and as it is they are tens of millions € far from it. after they switch to SABRE and live through this summer i expect to see some major changes in the business strategy.let's hope for that!

biggest cuts are:Tivat - this will most likely the outcome of their CS agreement with MGX. i would love to see the RPK for summer 2017 vs summer 2016. my guess is that cash cow will just get fatter.

Istanbul - ok, this codeshare with Turks could actually be a wise move

Kiev - there is no more adrias crj

zagreb cut is an interesting one. it would be interesting to see if they will give up on zagreb completly.

Although it is only 10% or so reduction, which could end up being less with potential introduction of new routes in the summer, we can not ignore the fact that things are not progressing in the past 6months or more, but are in fact stagnating or dare I say - reversing.

It's not all gloom and doom but how the airline end up here after only 3 years?

Well it all comes down to people who are running the business. See, if an employee is responsible for his/her performance, why should some manager be exempt. Because he's backed up by political friends who also show no accountability for their actions? I don't think that is fair, do you agree?

See, when you turn your back and close the doors to your main asset, employees, you are bound to make mistakes and achieve less then desirable results.

Employees feel less appreciated, motivated and in some way cheated. But more importantly, when you disregard the numbers and continue to dig the hole, your only option in order to survive is to make cuts and reduce expenses. Which is probably a smart move at this moment.

Then you overhire and you continue to mix business and politics. Party appointed employees or those paying to get a job are destructive for any business and airline is no different. This airline employs more pilots, flight attendants but even worse office staff than it needs for its size of 21 aircraft. You have front line flighdeck employees who have been completely ignored but are the main people who actually make the business "fly". You create an atmosphere where any office worker is more important than an pilot or a mechanic. You don't communicate, you ignore them and you punish and instill fear. That's not good for morale... Numbers don't lie, except accounting can do miracles when you need them. Other regional carriers are no different. When the government keeps pumping money in the budget you have a management who doesn't care or feel obligation to perform and offten times you have people who are not adequate for the job.

Fast forward today and you have surplus of pilots who fly half the normal rosters (unless you are in "favorites" group), and you have routes that do not perform well because someone in the marketing or sales is not doing their job well. Or because a politicians decide where you fly...

Expenses keep increasing, cost rise and revenues then must go down. Its very simple, and the cure to this is also very simple. But you have to face the truth and be honest and transparent with your self and more importantly with your employees.

The worst is that all of this is actually happening at the moment when most of the airline industry is making a profit, or is at least able to break-even and invest in further development. Instead of continuing to grow Air Serbia is shrinking.

What went wrong? Etihad and their entire business model went wrong and this has also effected Air Serbia. I guessing Etihad has told Air Airserbia that they can not rely on any more funding from the Etihad group (for the time being at least) and that they have to become self sufficient. This really sucks for Air Serbia because their business model probably aloud them to some financial support from the group. Now that this is gone or limited, they are left in a pretty unpleasant position.

Going by the info given, the JU crew did what they could in regards to the above incident. As much as the crew would like to do more, the fact is that crew are sometimes helpless in these situations and nothing much can be done. In some countries, smoking on board is taken seriously, in many nothing much is done. JU crew have no right to restrain pax due to Serbian law not allowing it, which imo needs to change, while adequate training for such implemented. JU have a number of crew from the ME3 which train their crew in restraining dusruptive pax, however as above, have no handcuffs/restraining devices nor the legal right to do so under Serbian law.

Even if they had the right to restrain, the above is still no grounds to restrain. JU crew did what they could, and did a good job. Well Done!

Gee guys, don't you understand that this just had to be done in order to keep the Serbian prime minister's ego-building long haul flight to JFK on life support. And to apply that perfectly rational strategy of turning to the East, flights to destinations such as Krasnodar, Astana, Tehran...etc. Smh

The post is not about OU.But you are so obsessed and frustrated with Croatia and OU.Here's another way how JU can make company more profitable - stop flying to ZAG.You still live in the past, wake up.BEG and JU is not the center of the world.

I am expecting that they introduce several new lines. They will cut Zagreb but in same time they will introduce Venice. They cut Varna but they put Ohrid in night wave. Let's wait few more weeks to see if they would introduce some new line.

Dejan, if what you say is an official statement from the airline (strengthening short-haul flights by feeding with long-haul flights), than -I'm sorry to say that but- bankruptcy is inevitable for JU. Because there's no such business model on earth. In aviation business it works the opposite way, short-haul flights feed long-haul flights.

Unfortunately it will most probably become worse than what we see in the table presented.

All operations to Germany may be handed over to AB in order to support the latest restructuring of that EAP member, in a code-share agreement. In addition, JU's AUH route may be merged with EY's flight. In such scenario EY would start using wide-body on the route to be competitive with EK's new service to ZAG.

That would make reduction of another 40 flights pw. JU is facing a tough period.

We're listening about this since September 2015. So, when they cut back than the winter schedule have this helped them out or didn't? Because, as far as I remember, the cut caused a lack of connectivity. Now cuts are even bigger.

-11,6% is not optimizing. Even Croatia with forced downsizing because of restructuration did not have even near to 11,6% reduction.

And we are talking about company that was announce how results are perfect, how their system is profitable even this year. Profitable, more passengers, better results, better LF, but still huge downsizing.

I don't know any company that was successful with downsizing. It is always begging of end.

- JU are not reliable with their schedules, as mentioned above, many last minute changes does not evoke customer confidence.- JU never had a perfect timetable where all flights connected all the time. Additional reductions dont help either.- JU is late to release flights for sale. With the seasonality of the domestic market, quickly filling seats with lower yields especially for transit pax bleeds money that is already scarce, or non existant.- Too many A319's in the fleet. JU never replaced the DC9 which is a huge mistake. A regional jet such as the ERJ in 2 variations would solve the ATR issue as well as regional/euro destinations not suited for ATR ops and too small to send the A319 ie PRG, VCE, WAW, VIE, SKG, MXP, FCO. SJJ many times takes on a payload restriction and its their shortest flight!!!- No proper plan was in place for the A330 as evident earlier in their late attempt into long haul charters. There was always intention to serve PEK, and preparing a reduced JFK would of easily fit a 2 p/w PEK. This boosts ac utility.- BEG is not an ideal transit hub which doesnt work the most efficiently. Not much to do other than browse over priced shops or relax at cafes partially stocked.- Pax in longer transit litterally have nothing to do. With the city soo close, JU could easily run 'mini tours' for those transiting over 6 hours. Its a fantastic product that TK offers, which JU could easily implement.

JU is in a perfect location, in a region which is underserved and not well connected. JU in many of its markets has little to no competition yet seems to struggle with expansion and holding onto what theyve built the last couple years.

Friend, Arabmentality is not really known and famous for pre-planning and advance noticing hence charter offerings after the fact,destination startup without advance ticket sales..etc. Nowdays Serbia provides call service while vital decisions are made in Auh. Long life to our national king!!

Well, the whole EY Group is basically shrinking their operations. Just look how sad AB is and not to mention the super cheap prices offered by AZ. My only concern is that this bubble might soon burst and if AZ or AB don´t fly, they will not generate revenue for JU to fly neither. Situation is not dramatic but also not positive.

For me this is more than expected. You should have in mind that one year ago INI was a deserted wannabe airport. Now they are hoping for 300k pax. Predicting that W6/RY would create a totally new market out of INI was not completelly correct. There is an imapct on AS. While there is a possibility that LCC at Nis have created a new market on the traditional gastarbeiter routes like ZRH/MLH/BTS they have endangered the position of JU on markets like Denmark, Belgium or The Netherlands. However I wish all the best to JU. Glad to see their OHD route is doing well! Greetings from Skopje

So much hate and bitterness. So much of a wish that something dies, ceases to exist. I used to wonder why so much but it really does not matter anymore. Understanding that hate and those death wishes is really not necessary. Staying safely far from that biohazard is the only thing that matters.

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LIVERY OF THE WEEK

Jetstar special

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Australian low cost carrier Jetstar has unveiled a special livery on one of its Airbus A320s to promote the first country-specific version of the board game Scrabble. Manufacturer Mattel has included a list of local slang in its official glossary that are also featured on the jet, including words such as "Bonza", "Mollydooker" and "Devo". The A320 also includes the airline's name spelled out with Scrabble tiles. The jet is being used on both domestic and international routes and features Scrabble branding inside the cabin as well

GLOBAL AVIATION NEWS

Lufthansa, easyJet favourites for Air Berlin

Lufthansa Group and UK-based easyJet have been selected as preferred bidders for the main assets of the insolvent Air Berlin, the German carrier has confirmed. Lufthansa also submitted a bid for Air Berlin's Austria-based subsidiary Niki, which could be integrated into its LCC arm Eurowings. Air Berlin administrator Lucas Flother had planned to keep these decisions confidential until September 25, after Germany’s general elections. Air Berlin said in a statement that the creditors’ committee will continue talks with the two carriers until October 12 with the aim of selling Air Berlin's air transport assets. Talks with bidders interested in other assets will continue in parallel. Lufthansa Group CEO Carsten Spohr said at a media event in Frankfurt that Lufthansa’s bid for Air Berlin's assets is focused on securing the 38 Airbus A319/320s it wet leases from Air Berlin. The Star Alliance member is also interested in a further 20 to 40 aircraft, without creating antitrust concerns. Those 38 wet-leased aircraft carry about 1.000 passengers a day, mainly for LCC Eurowings, and Lufthansa’s priority is to keep that operation stable. Lufthansa would need around 3.000 new employees as it seeks to build market share following the exit of Air Berlin, which has 8.000 employees. However, Lufthansa is not interested in Air Berlin's long-haul routes because it said Eurowings can grow this segment on its own. Air Berlin will end long-haul operations September 25.
Source: ATW